82 BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 



hatched amongst the " marram "-covered sand-hills 

 at Spurn, where they may be found throughout the 

 year. In the country bordering the Humber, where 

 there is a great preponderance of grass land over 

 arable, the Partridge seldom obtains grain, their 

 food in these districts during a great part of the 

 year consisting of insects and their larvae. In severe 

 winter weather they subsist almost exclusively on the 

 young blades of grasses ; and their flesh, particularly 

 towards the end of the season, acquires a most pecu- 

 liar grassy and unpleasant flavour. 



137. COTURNIX VULGARIS, Fleming. Common Quail. 



From what our oldest sportsmen have told me, I 

 gather that the Quail was by no means uncommon in 

 Lincolnshire half a century since. Since this period 

 the drainage and improved cultivation of the marshes 

 and fens, as well as the enclosure and high farming 

 of the c ' Wolds," has so entirely changed the character 

 of the district and broken up and destroyed their old 

 haunts, that of late years they have been observed 

 only as rare and occasional visitants. 



It has occasionally been shot in East Yorkshire. 

 On the 24th of July, 1870, Mr. Boyes found a nest 

 of the Quail near Beverley, containing eleven eggs, on 

 the side of a railway embankment amongst grass &c. 

 The nest was a slight hollow containing a few dead 

 grasses, and the eggs laid slovenly, some on the top 



